Ask Alexa to play some jazz, or tell her you want to space out and listen to the Grateful Dead and she'll start streaming music from the Amazon Prime
library of tracks. It can also use Spotify and Pandora when asked. Alexa will also connect to the radio if wanted, via the TuneIn app.

Users can say 'good morning' to the Google Home and it can give you the daily headlines, weather, and even the traffic conditions to your next destination.

Google Home - Wake you up in the know

Users can say 'good morning' to the Google Home and it can give you the daily headlines, weather, and even the traffic conditions to your next destination.

Photo: KARL-JOSEF HILDENBRAND, AFP/Getty Images

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Google Home - Play music

Just like the Echo, the Google Home can also play music on demand. It won't even judge you.

Google Home - Play music

Just like the Echo, the Google Home can also play music on demand. It won't even judge you.

Photo: Waring Abbott/Getty Images

Image 12 of 18

Google Home - Find your phone

Ever been at home and can't find your phone? Tell Google to call your phone and it will ring it so you can retrieve, hopefully no worse for wear.

Google Home - Find your phone

Ever been at home and can't find your phone? Tell Google to call your phone and it will ring it so you can retrieve, hopefully no worse for wear.

Photo: Keri Blakinger

Image 13 of 18

Google Home - Go back in time

Ask the Google Home to tell you about the news on a given date in time and it will scan a New York Times page -- dating back to 1851 -- and tell you who was bombing who or who was topping the box office.

Say you want to hide something important but don't want to forget. You can tell the Google Home where, say, your prized 1989 TV Guide is or maybe your passport are located in the home. Later, ask the Google Home where it is and it will cough up the location.

What can these cool devices do for you at home? Check out the slideshow above to see some of the simple tasks that they can accomplish...

One of the hottest gifts of the holiday gift-giving season are intelligent personal assistants like the Amazon Echo and the Google Home. Chances are, you or someone you know has received one as a gift this season.

Activated with just the simple sound of the human voice, they are quickly becoming one of the most popular gadgets in modern homes.

Many people might find them a bit intimidating but once users understand exactly what these devices can do they might discover that they don't know how they lived without them.

Wired published a great primer on how to interact with the devices, pitting the Echo and the Google bot against one another. Interest in the machines reached a fever pitch in November as shoppers began weighing the differences between the two.

After a "wake word" or trigger phrase is used the devices wake up and are ready to receive commands. The Echo and Google Home are not really "always on." They're in something called passive listening mode, waiting to leap into action.

As the Houston Chronicle's Dwight Silverman recently wrote over on HoustonChronicle.com the makers insist nothing is done with the data until the trigger is heard, but not everyone is comfortable with an internet-connected listening device in their homes.

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Does Alexa have a potty mouth?

Media: Fox5Atlanta

Apple's Siri software has already been able to do many things that the Alexa and the Google Home can do, like answer simple questions and help keep organized, but these are the next step forward.

Sure ceding control of your surroundings in your home sanctuary to artificial intelligence might seem strange now, but remember it was just a decade ago that having the internet on a cellphone was a novelty.

Word has it that Apple's version of the technology, dubbed the HomePod, is coming early in 2018, so microwave some popcorn and get ready to watch the AI Wars unfold.

Alexa, put popcorn on the grocery list.

Craig Hlavaty is a reporter for Chron.com and HoustonChronicle.com. He's an intolerable native Texan with too much ink in his skin and too much brisket stuck in his teeth.

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